Cai's focus on sociopolitical issues, especially relating to acts of terrorism, has become a central feature of his work since 9/11. The most overt example, Inopportune: Stage One, simulates the trajectory of an exploding automobile tumbling through space, offering up the contradiction between a spectator's abhorrence of violence and attraction to the abstract beauty of some violent images. Nine white American-made cars are positioned in various stages of tumbling through the air. The first car remains inert on the ground. As each subsequent vehicle progresses through the sequence in mid-air, electric light rods protruding from their bodies emit blinding, flashing lights that mimic exploding fireworks. The palette of the light rods begins with a white, hot light, and grows progressively warmer and more vibrant as the angles of the cars rise and the “explosion” progresses through time, then quiets down into soft hues of purple and pink and at last a soft blue. The last vehicle lands on the ground, absent of any color, as if the car explosion never happened. The overall composition has the look of stop-motion photography or a sequence of freeze frames from a movie. According to the artist, the expansive horizontal layout of the original installation at MASS MoCA—which viewers had to walk along and through to experience fully—also referred to the temporal experience of viewing Chinese hand scroll paintings, whose narratives unfold horizontally. A related work, Illusion (2004), is a three-channel video installation that depicts an exploding car superimposed to move through Times Square in Manhattan. The pedestrians and surrounding traffic seem apathetic or oblivious to the vehicle's violent demise. The concept of Inopportune: Stage One has been reconfigured as a vertical installation within the rotunda of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as a central element of the artist's 2008 retrospective. —MICHELLE YUN

Head On was created for Cai's eponymous solo exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin and exemplifies how local history and culture play a central role within his working process. In this tableau, a pack of 99 life-sized wolves gallops at full force toward a transparent glass wall, leaping through the air in a unified arc, only to collide head on into the unyielding barrier. The wall—first realized to the exact height and thickness of the Berlin Wall—represents society's tendency to search only for the obvious, missing instead what may not be immediately evident but ultimately more dangerous. In Cai's artistic iconography, wolves possess a ferocity and courageousness similar to tigers and achieve heroism through their collective unity. In this installation, however, their cohesiveness leads to their ultimate downfall. Here, through the emblematic imagery of wolves, Cai intends to address the human fallibility of following any collective ideology too blindly and humankind's fate to repeat mistakes unthinkingly. Illusion II—a two-channel video installation that was also included in the Head On exhibition—documents an explosion event of the same title. A German-style house was fabricated by Cai on a lot adjacent to the Anhalter Bahnhof, which was once Berlin's largest train station but almost completely destroyed during World War II. The video's documentation of the small house being decimated by explosives, with the station's ruins in the background, illustrates the artist's ongoing exploration of the contradictions involved in perceptions of beauty and violence. —MICHELLE YUN

Construction has begun on a 20-story residential tower on 5 Franklin Place in New York designed by Dutch architect Ben van Berkel of UNStudio.

The exterior will be wrapped in black metal bands which will form balconies, terraces and sunshades. These bands will also frame views from inside the apartments and provide privacy for inhabitants.

The building will contain 55 apartments ranging in size from approximately 1,200 square feet to approximately 3,400 square feet. There will be three types of home: the loft residences on the lower floors, city residences above and three sky penthouses. Fixtures for kitchens and bathrooms have been designed by van Berkel and manufactured by B&B Italia.

LV has sued a student artist, Nadia Plesner, over her "Simple Living" campaign, a fundraiser that benefits the Divest for Darfur organization.Plesner drew an image of a Darfur victim holding a teacup style dog and toting an LV-inspired bag, to prove that a Paris Hilton-centric image would get more media attention than real-life Darfur victims. She was right, and has been raising money for the cause by putting her drawing on t-shirts and posters.Except LV isn't exactly happy about it - even though 100% of Plesner's profits have been going straight to Darfur victims, Louis Vuitton is suing her for around $22,000 per day that she continues her campaign - apparently they think the design, though it doesn't include an exact copy of the Murakami pattern, infringes on their intellectual property rights.We understand why Louis Vuitton might not want what is clearly meant to represent their most recognized accessory hanging off the arm of an emaciated child victim, but, really?

Kinderstad, or “children’s town”, is situated on the roof of the Medical Centre of Amsterdam Free University (VU Amsterdam), and is intended to provide a place where children between 4 and 18 years old being treated in the medical centre can meet with family and relax outside of the hospital environment.

The goal of “Kinderstad” is to extract the sick child, its family and friends from the unpleasant surrounding of a hospital and to enable an encounter in a much better atmosphere. This new specialised type of health care for sick children gives the visitors the chance to forget for a moment that the child is sick and to facilitate the normal development of the young patients (between 4 and 18 years old) despite the treatments; it has a positive influence on the patients’ recovery. “Kinderstad” is attached to the children’s ward on the 9th floor in the eastern wing of the Medical Centre of Amsterdam Free University (VU Amsterdam).

Monday, April 28, 2008

With that naked photo of Carla Bruni having garnered some of the most impressive column inches of the year so far, photographer Michel Comte is at it again; his 1999 shot of a bare-breasted Gisele Bundchen will go under the hammer at Christie's next month. The Photographs sale, which will be held at Christie's London on May 15, is another supermodel-centric affair; also up is a black-and-white portrait of Kate Moss, taken by Albert Watson in Marrakech circa 1993. The guide price for the Comte piece is £6,000 to £8,000 - but since an Irving Penn portrait of Gisele recently smashed its £20,000 guide and sold for £98,000, the sky, it seems, is the limit.

With all the gizmos and the gadgets today that is usually ran by a microchip, it’s refreshing to see something that was fashioned using traditional engineering. The ScarfCaddy, the sister of TieCaddy features the same patented winding mechanism that quickly yet gently rolls a single scarf or sash into its protective transparent case for storage and travel purposes.

Measuring 6 inches high and 2 ¼ inches in diameter, the Scarf Caddy retails for $7.95 and is available at select retailers across the country and online at http://www.scarfcaddy.com/Yet, one question remains – with all the advantages of Scarf Caddy already mentioned, would you buy it? Next question is – if you buy it, will you use it?Except for a very few of us where closet space is not a problem, the 6 inches high by 2 ¼ inches diameter to store one scarf is a lot of space. As a travel gear, the percentage of space that the Scarf Caddy occupies becomes larger in comparison.Still, sometimes the ‘value’ of the scarf (there are some in the market that cost $700 retail) itself warrants a Scarf Caddy for storage. At $700, the scarf becomes an affordable work of art.That said, it’s still up to you to decide whether a Scarf Caddy is something you can live without.

One billion handsets produced globally each year and only 10% recycled. Average mobile phone user replaces their handset every 18 months. This has a big impact on the environment; 36kg of CO2 is used to make one 90g phone. To reduce the impact of the mobile phone it's time to rethink the materials mobile phone are made of and the manner we recharge them.

The bamboo degradable mobile phoneThe bamboo is a degradable mobile phone. When the battery, antenna and print board are removed the case can be placed in compos and a few weeks later the case will begin to disintegrate. Inside the case are bamboo seeds, these will start to grow and feet on the case. After a few months the will turn in to bamboo plant which compensates the impact manufacturing process the bamboo phone has on the environment.

MaterialsThe case of the bamboo phone is made out two materials. Number one is a bio-plastic which is derived from renewable raw materials such as corn. Number two is bamboo which is a grass and can grow two feet or more a day. When it's harvested, it need not be replanted, because it will grow a new shoot from its extensive root system. So bamboo renews itself readily, unlike hardwood trees, which, once cut, are gone forever. Bamboo is an endlessly renewable resource.

EnergyThe inefficient recharging of the mobile phones has also an impact the environment. We could save enough energy in one year to power 60,000 European when 10% of the mobile phone users turn off the electricity supply to the chargers after use. The bamboo mobile phone can be recharged with muscle power. The phone is equipped whit a cranking charger; a 3-minute cranking session gives the phone enough power to make one call. This means the bamboo phone never runs out of energy. The phone is also equipped with a monochrome display to ensure maximum energy efficiency.

Green gadgetThe use of materials and the possibility to recharge the phone whit muscle power give the phone a very low carbon footprint and reduce the impact on the environment. This makes the phone "a green gadget"

We all live in buildings and wear clothes. Traditionally, fashion and architecture have remained quite distinct. In recent years, however, the two disciplines have become closer than ever before.Since the 1980s, these two worlds have increasingly shared intriguing connections. Sharing materials, design methods and fabrication has inspired radical developments.Discover how over 50 internationally-renowned architects and designers including Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto, Future Systems, Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid 'fashion' buildings and 'construct' garments.Specially selected new exhibits for London include work by Boudicca, Eley Kishimoto, Martin Margiela and Hussein Chalayan.The exhibition was designed for Somerset House by architect Eva Jiricna and features over 200 works including iconic garments, 3D architectural models and film footage.After huge success in Los Angeles and Tokyo, Somerset House brings this exhibition to Europe to open the new riverside Embankment Galleries.

Friday, April 25, 2008

From the founder of the cool hunter comes dear-god.net; a startlingly new concept of spirituality where people from all over the planet reveal their innermost hopes and fears in the form of prayers to god. Dear God is completely non-demonational and the term god is used in the broadest sense – encompassing every religion’s concept of a higher power; be it a Christian god, a Muslim god or simply a fluid idea of universal energy. In its first week, the site has sparked an organic revolution, with people all over the world embracing the opportunity to unburden themselves, to share their hopes and fears with others in an effort create hope, healing, inner peace and clarity.